Archive for August 4th, 2011

The new Pulpit Rock mountain lodge, the winning design competition entry in 2004, accommodates twenty-eight guest rooms, a café, a restaurant and a conference room. The lodge is situated at the trail-head leading up to The Pulpit Rock, the sheer cliff cantilevering over the Lysefjord.

The Podium Green Roof Garden is the first transformation in the competition-winning scheme “Agora Theatre” – the Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization. This three-acre upper-level component of Viljo Revell’s 1965 iconic City Hall and multi-level public square was originally conceived as a ceremonial public space, reached via a giant sculptural ramp. The space was never successful at attracting the public – it was a grim, empty, three acres of concrete that has been closed to the public for well over a decade. The Podium Green Roof Garden re-conceives this upper level as a vast public park integrated with the existing elevated walkway system, and while respecting the complex’s heritage status, reopening it to the public as a truly engaging 21st Century space. The project reconsiders how an extensive green roof providing a plethora of technical environmental benefits can be an exciting and successful public space that merits repeated, habitual visits. It is the largest publicly accessible green roof in Canada and the flagship green roof project for the City of Toronto that since 2009 mandates green roofs on all new buildings. By creating a vital community space that fulfils this environmental imperative, it promotes a broader concept of stewardship linking people to their environment.

Sustainable development must begin with a general reflection of the building process, including on materials. It is important to prove that today, building a sustainable and energy-efficient, is not necessarily syno­nymous with building in wood. Indeed the extensive use of a material can quickly become detrimental to the economic market. Steel is a building material to take into account development considera­tions sustainable in many aspects.